In a lecture in 1896, historian Mandell Creighton reminded his audience that English mediaeval law was not codified in order to enshrine some ideology, or to achieve legal purity. It was created to prevent ideologically driven Continental lawmakers encroaching on cherished English customs. Consequently, it is still so bound up with those customs that it does not lend itself to export.

Encouraged by us, other nations have copied the institutions of English parliamentary democracy; but multi-party politics and democratic protest have proved difficult to handle where the customs and conventions of English society are not already firmly established. Some foreign peoples, warned Creighton, are beginning to feel that the political institutions they have borrowed from us have let them down.

119 words